Williams’ portrayal of Black Catholic history is untrue
In the Feb. 6 issue, author and associate professor Shannen Dee Williams is quoted as saying during a Bishop Keane Institute lecture, “Black history is and always has been Catholic history. Catholic history is and always has been Black history.”
While the two histories may have aligned at certain points, the two were never synonymous.
During her talk, Williams reportedly debunked myths about the Catholic Church regarding racism.
One of them: “The Church was a reluctant and benevolent participant in modern slavery.”
To back up her claims, she notes papal bulls by Nicholas V, Alexander VI and Gregory XVI. Nicholas V’s 1452 Bull to Alfonso V of Portugal regarding Saracens (Muslims) was
a defensive reaction to the Muslims terrorizing Christians. It was not a race war with the goal of slavery.
Williams also claims the Catholic Church was the “largest practitioner of segregation.”
During the first half of the 20th century, many churches of all faiths were self “segregated” by nationality, i.e., Italians, Poles, Irish, not just race. People tend to worship close to home. So, if there were no Black people living near the predominately French church, you weren’t going to see many of them on Sunday but neither would you have seen many Germans or Danes.
The ratio of Black Catholics to white also requires consideration. According to the 2019-2020 Pew Research Survey, 6% of Black adults are Catholic and they make up 4% of Catholics.
Williams said she was leaving her audience with a “blueprint for confronting the enduring sense of white supremacy and exclusion in our Church.” If she has the blueprint, where is it?
She is creating more divisiveness. It is also demoralizing to good priests and parishioners. It is especially hurtful to multi-racial families. – Christy Metacarpa, Williamsburg
Common sense gun laws needed
In face of the February gun death of the Catholic bishop in Los Angeles following on the heels of mass gun deaths at Michigan State University, University of Virginia, Walmart(s) in Virginia and elsewhere, elementary schools in Sandy Hook, Conn. and Uvalde, Texas, and gun deaths in Richmond, and on and on, going back to the mass shootings in the late ‘60s at the tower at the University of Texas, the Feb. 20 letter to the editor incorrectly claiming a Gospel and religious basis to gun rights was shocking and sad.
Further, throwing our hands up and saying, “We live in an imperfect world” and doing nothing about guns and gun violence is indefensible.
We, more than ever, need common sense gun legislation at the federal and state levels to restrict the sales of AK-15’s, other military-style weapons and to the endless number of guns an individual is allowed to own.
The U.S. has more guns than people, more mass gun deaths and individual gun deaths than any country in the world.
Our leaders, elected, judicial and non-elected, need to act now, including the Catholic Church, its members and leaders in support of commons sense gun laws to protect us all. – Jim Thorsen, Richmond
Revising prayer of absolution was pointless
In light of all the substantive problems plaguing the Catholic Church these days, one wonders how it could possibly be the case that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) would undertake the task of revising the wording of the prayer of absolution used in the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation (Catholic Virginian, Feb. 20). It is mind-numbing to learn that this is exactly what the USCCB has done.
The result of this project was a change in the use of two verbs and the elimination of two words. I would say that these are differences without distinctions. The CV reports that there might be penitents who, in light of these changes, could become anxious about the possibility that a priest might “revert” accidentally to the earlier sacramental language and thus invalidate any meaningful sacramental experience but that no such anxiety need be felt. The sacrament would still be valid.
Good to know.
It is, in part, due to our Church leadership’s engagement in such pointless activities that many Catholics find themselves lost in the weeds these days as opposed to enjoying an anxiety-free participation in the life of Christ fully and mercifully present in the Church. – Philip Garmey Lynchburg